A year after Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab broke the record for the longest standing ovation at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, another film about Palestine has managed to go even further. This time, it’s
NAZA, a Palestinian documentary that received what is being reported as the longest round of applause the festival has ever seen.
Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor —
both of whom previously worked on No Other Land, the Oscar-winning documentary chronicling the destruction of Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank —
NAZA once again puts the spotlight on what daily life is like in a state actively committing genocide. Per the documentary’s official synopsis on IMDB, the non-fiction film “examines the civilian casualties of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and the systems behind targeted killings of Palestinians.”
Featuring interviews with intelligence officers, soldiers, and other high-ranking officials, its title refers to an acronym commonly used by the Israeli military for “collateral damage,” pointing at civilians killed simply for being in the vicinity of an alleged intended target.
Met with 24-minutes of applause following its world premiere at the most recent edition of the Venice Film Festival, NAZA reportedly received the longest standing ovation in the event’s history, surpassing the 23-minute response earned by The Voice of Hind Rajab just one year earlier.
There’s obviously only so much a 24-minute standing ovation can achieve, especially when the reality documented on screen continues well beyond the walls of a cinema. Still, seeing two films about Palestine receive record-breaking reactions at Venice in as many years says something: people are watching, listening, and paying more attention to what is happening in the Holy Land for over 70 years.